Robert/Bob

In a receive application it is only important that the signal you want
to hear exceeds the level of total system noise by a desired amount. In
your case atmospheric noise is likely to be far above that of whatever
the receiver front end contributes.

Having said that my HF/6m TXCVR has a preamp that can be used on 10M
with a slight useful effect. I'd suspect that this is a design problem
as the same model w/out 6m doesnt have it.

My answer is no, the 2.5dB can be ignored. You may want to consider
though how you should site/feed the antenna to obtain a good s/n ratio
from the desired signals.

I personally wouldnt touch RS coax but I have no evidence to back up my
thought that it is technically inferior. Just that they tend to buy
things cheap and there is a lot of rubbishy coax around. I might go to
the "Wireman" or direct to a well known manufacturers (Belden S&H etc)
retailer.

Cheers Bob VK2YQA

Robert11 wrote:

For a receive only application, using coax from the Balun of a simple
outside antenna to the receiver,
is a loss of, e.g., 2.5 db "meaningful" ?

BTW: R/S Coax a decent quality ?